The unsolved murder of a farm family still haunts the white small town of Pluto, North Dakota, generations after the vengeance exacted and the distortions of fact transformed the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation.
Part Ojibwe, part white, Evelina Harp is an ambitious young girl prone to falling hopelessly in love. Mooshum, Evelina's grandfather, is a repository of family and tribal history with an all-too-intimate knowledge of the violent past. And Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, who bears witness, understands the weight of historical injustice better than anyone. Through the distinct and winning voices of three unforgettable narrators, the collective stories of two interwoven communities ultimately come together to reveal a final wrenching truth.
“Mesmerizing… Erdrich ...communicate[s] the complexity and the mystery of human relationships.”
“Erdrich’s latest novel...is so natural you forget there’s a writer behind it...Instantly gripping...”
“A lush, multilayered book…The magic lies in the details of Erdrich’s ever-replenishing mythology.”
“A multigenerational tour de force of sin, redemption, murder and vengeance”
“The stories told by [Erdrich’s] characters offer pleasures of language, of humor, of sheer narrative momentum, that shine even in the darkest moments of the book.”
“Erdrich deftly weaves past and present, and her literary territory is as intricate as Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County.”
“Erdrich has demonstrated a rare ability to create vibrant, wholly original characters and to describe nature in a prose so lyrical it becomes poetry. ‘The Plague of Doves’ is proof that she has yet to exhaust her powerful magic.”
“[Erdrich’s] accomplishment in these pages is Tolstoy-like: to render human particularity so meticulously and with such fierce passion as to convey the great, glittering movement of time.”
“Louise Erdrich’s imaginative freedom has reached its zenith—THE PLAGUE OF DOVES is her dazzling masterpiece.”
“To read Louise Erdrich’s thunderous new novel is to leap headlong into the fiery imagination of a master storyteller...a rich, colorful mosaic of tales that twist and turn for decades...”
“Wholly felt and exquisitely rendered tales of memory and magic...an intricate tapestry that deeply satisfies the mind, the heart, and the spirit.”
“An intricate tale of heartbreak and humor...wondrous novel...What marks these stories...is what has always set Erdrich apart and made her work seem miraculous: the jostling of pathos and comedy...Sit down and listen carefully.”
“Erdrich is in top form here...”
“...at once mythic and down-to-earth...beautiful, funny, moving, and unexpected.”
“Writing in prose that combines the magical sleight of hand of Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez with the earthy, American rhythms of Faulkner...[Ms. Erdrich] has written what is arguably her most ambitious—and in many ways, her most deeply affecting—work yet.”
“One can only marvel...at Erdrich’s amazing ability to do what so few of us can – shape words into phrases and sentences of incomparable beauty that, then, pour forth a mesmerizing story.”
Louise Erdrich is the author of thirteen novels, several volumes of poetry, short stories, children's books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her novel Love Medicine won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and The Plague of Doves was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She lives in Minnesota and is the owner of Birchbark Books, an independent bookstore.
Distributor: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: 05-12-2009
Pages: 352
Measurements: 8in X 5.3125in X 0.792793in X 9.41oz
